Because the thing that dug into my ribs when Elliott pulled me down, it wasn’t debris. It was the feeling I get when a mirror is uncovered nearby. The mirror that tumbled over the side of the boardwalk must’ve landed near one of the officers down there. They looked at it. They loosed a Being on themselves—and on everyone else in the vicinity.

Including me.

My heart isn’t racing anymore. It isn’t beating at all. I’m not breathing. Not looking. Not thinking.

I have a lot of experience with fear. Sometimes it slips over you bit by bit, slow and insidious. And sometimes it closes you up so tightly in its fist that you forget you ever knew how to feel anything else.

I’m on my feet. I’m running across the boardwalk. The handcuff bites hard at my wrist, making me stagger. Elliott stumbles behind me, panting and gasping, his expression blank like he’s afraid to think too. All I see is Ginger wrapped up in those wings. All I can hear is the screaming below us.

Being. That was a Being, no more than ten feet away from me.

I’ve heard the stories. The shadowy monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Bearlike. Tiny, crawling spiders with fangs that drip darkness. Once, when someone looked into a mirror while on a boat just offshore, it brought a vast black whale with teeth like saws and an unhinged jaw that swallowed up the sailing vessel whole. But I’ve never seen one myself. Not till now.

Shouting ahead of us. More cops. Thoughtlessly, I reverse directions. I can’t get caught, can’t get exiled to a mainland full of those things. Elliott shouts and tries to wrench me away, but it’s too late—I don’t see Ginger until I’m tripping over his body. I land hard on my left side, taking Elliott down with me. He scrambles to get up but slips, twisting me further toward the corpse.

Ginger’s eyes are still open. Still screaming, somehow, even though they’re empty. Red soaks into the boards beneath him, puddles in the divots, funnels through the cracks. I’m close enough to register the smell: coppery-bright blood mixed with the tang of fresh dryer sheets.

I roll to my side and clutch my head in my hands, trying not to throw up. I’ve seen dead bodies before. Some of them, the ones they plaster on posters around town as warnings, were way worse than this. Ginger died quickly. It wasn’t that bad. I don’t care anyway. Why should I care? He was my enemy. And now he’s dead. It’s good news. It’s good.